The main event fight between Anderson Silva and Michael Bisping that went down this past weekend (Sat., Feb. 27, 2016) at UFC Fight Night 84 in London, England, didn’t go off without a hitch.
In fact, the middleweight fight (see it again here) had two controversial (and back-to-back) moments.
In the waning seconds of the third round, Bisping’s mouthpiece was knocked out, prompting “The Count” to shift his attention to referee Herb Dean to inform him of the mishap. Dean, however, was having none of it, letting the action continue.
Seconds later, a distracted Bisping was floored with a flying knee from Silva, which seemed to have put him down for the count. That’s when the second confusing moment happened, as “The Spider” celebrated a victory he had yet to obtain. Much to the chagrin of Silva and his team, Dean informed him the bout had not ended.
During a recent stop at The MMA Hour, Herb elaborated on both issues and revealed why he made the calls.
On Bisping’s mouthpiece:
“That’s the way the mechanics work, you replace the mouthpiece during a lull in the action. He signaled once, and Anderson was actually in the process of attacking him and for a lot of reasons that are pretty evident, you can’t stop to replace a mouthpiece during a heated exchange. That qualified as a heated exchange. If we were doing that, we’d have guys who are getting their bell rung spitting out their mouth piece to get a little bit of extra time. Or sometimes they might feel tired and you spit your mouthpiece out. So we obviously can’t do that in the middle of an exchange.”
Dean also confirmed that the rule is a written one under the unified rules for mixed martial arts (MMA).
On Silva’s premature victory celebration:
“He hit him with a knee and dropped him and then he walked off and started to celebrate. He had been dropped, but in MMA we don’t stop a match just because someone gets dropped. I saw that when he fell he was not unconscious. He was facing Anderson and Anderson didn’t give him a threat to protect himself from. I don’t want to play what ifs, what if he attacked, but the bottom line is that he did not attack. The round ended, but because Anderson was celebrating there was confusion as to what was going on. But I never had any confusion because I knew that I never stopped the match and that it was going to continue.”
Doesn’t get much clearer than that.
Bisping walked away from the O2 Arena in London, England, with a unanimous decision victory over “The Spider,” which to some, added yet a third and perhaps the biggest controversial moment of the contest.